


the archive

by ninefish



Series: if i stay here, trouble will find me [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Aurebesh, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:02:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24377674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninefish/pseuds/ninefish
Summary: How Anakin learned to read.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Mace Windu, Jocasta Nu & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker
Series: if i stay here, trouble will find me [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719697
Comments: 14
Kudos: 192





	the archive

**Author's Note:**

> hello hello! bc this week's chapter's a bit thin, i also finished up this oneshot :) enjoy!
> 
> set a bit after chapter 4 in the trials of mandalore (though it then skips around time-wise)

The stylus fell from Anakin’s cramping hand with a sad clack onto the flimsi before him. He groaned. _Again_. He’d been at this for _hours_ it felt like— copying the Aurebesh symbols and dutifully repeating the corresponding Basic syllable under his breath.

He looked to the side at the second piece of flimsi that had the neat, small symbols that Master Windu had written down for him. He swallowed down the embarrassment that automatically filled him at seeing his own large, childish writing next to his Master’s penmanship.

“This is impossible!” Anakin complained loudly, massaging his sore hand. 

Stranger still, he was told that he was “right-hand dominant”, yet he was used to using both of his hands with dexterity to repair droids. Except, in this case, it just felt like it was comparing his hands as “bad” and “reasonably less bad” at writing. He had tried writing with his left, just to see how it was, and yet the hand that had so easily fixed the wiring in Mom’s water heater had turned into worse than a lump of clay.

Master Windu looked up from his own reading to scrutinize Anakin’s work. “You’re making good progress, Padawan Skywalker,” he allowed. “Try to be less harsh on yourself— you will catch up.”

Anakin looked down, trying to not let his irritation seep into their Force bond. Windu had already chastened him on his emotions before. But of course. Reading and writing— just another way Anakin wasn’t as good as the other initiates. Another way he was _too old_.

Hell, what even was the difference of Grek and Usk? Why did one slanted stroke change the meaning of a word automatically and how did it seem that _everyone_ but Anakin just had this information hardwired into them?

On Tatooine, most people hadn’t been able to read. Almost null if you just looked at the slaves. The only people that could read were the fancy off-worlders that swaggered in to buy exotic goods or perhaps some merchants. But even the Hutt traders didn’t read much, preferring to rely on their droids and workers, flaunting their affluence. 

Because it wasn’t words that were power on Tatooine. It was possession and people. Or rather, it was who and how many you owned.

Anakin hadn’t needed words to fix a vaporator, hadn’t needed them to blow up that control tower, either. This was a waste of time that he could have spent doing katas or exploring the Temple. Even the old legends Master Windu was so fond of making Anakin read had all been transferred to holocrons. Anakin hadn’t needed any special training to figure out how to use _those_.

“What’s the point of doing this? Barely anyone uses flimsi anymore,” Anakin sulked.

“Reading is a valuable skill to have, Padawan. And the writing will help to solidify the symbols to memory. Reading is a way of communicating stories in a way different from other media,” Master Windu said. “There is much to learn from the poets.”

Anakin frowned sullenly at him, unimpressed. He didn’t need to say the same arguments he’d been giving from the beginning of Windu’s quest to teach him to read. 

He had all the stories he needed from the elders, from mouth to mouth as it was meant to be. What was the point of learning from long-dead sentients who held no relevance to Anakin’s life? He accepted learning about the Jedi histories because he wanted to become a Jedi. But what use did a freeborn man’s words have to preach to _him_?

It was frustrating to force himself to _read_ the letters. Why would Anakin piece together words so painstakingly slowly when a droid could just speak the words to him aloud twice as fast? It wasn’t like Anakin didn’t know Basic— Sith, he knew spoken Basic _and_ Huttese just as well.

“Do one more set of the transposition and then we can break for the day,” Windu finally sighed.

Anakin nodded and ignored his right hand’s protests at the abuse. _Aurek, ah. Besh, buh. Cresh, cuh . . . ._

* * *

Leaving their study alcove, Anakin unfortunately had to walk through the Archives. Master Windu had told him to meet him there because of the resource of seemingly endless flimsi, but Anakin just felt like the rows and rows of datafiles taunted him. Some archive— Anakin bet he could grab a random datafile and it would be an audio-based file. He didn’t _need_ to know how to read, he fumed.

But then there was a hum, in the corner of his mind. _Follow me_. Anakin stopped as though he’d been physically jerked back.

The whisper in the Force urged him down one of the rows until he found himself in front of a text that looked just as ethereally glowing as the others. The feeling urged him to take it.

Anakin looked to either side to see if anyone had seen his strange dash down the aisle. No one. He reached forward and snatched the file. He activated it and a wall of text greeted him. He scowled. This was pointless.

He made to shove the text back where it belonged when the nudging feeling touched him again.

Fine, Anakin would borrow it for the day, leave it in his room for a while and then return it. Maybe, if he was lucky, the datapad would perform some osmosis on his brain and he’d suddenly be the literate genius Master Windu seemed to think was his destiny.

Master Jocasta Nu didn’t ask any questions when he asked to check out the file— rather kind considering she knew exactly what the file was and had also just watched Anakin struggle to write basic Aurebesh for two hours. The Jedi Master merely gave her stern smile that promised painful retribution should anything happen to the datapad. 

Anakin slunk out of the Archives, relieved to be out of the shadows of the shelves.

* * *

It was on a comlink call to Obi-Wan that Anakin suddenly remembered the datapad again, stashed beneath the half-assembled skeleton of an astromech droid he was working on rebuilding.

Anakin had planned on just returning the stupid thing, but it had clung to him. So he’d renewed his borrowing session. And then he’d done it again. Each time, he told himself he’d just take it to a damn text-to-speech droid or return it, but each time, something held him back from each option. Every day when he had his reading and writing lessons with Master Windu, he’d slunk past the librarian’s desk, trying desperately to avoid Master Nu’s knowing gaze.

“Could you read this for me if I send a file over?” Anakin asked casually, as if the datapad hadn’t been consuming his thoughts for the past months. 

The image of Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow, “sure, Anakin.”

He didn’t ask why Anakin didn’t just put the file into a droid or about his progress in learning to read himself. That was why Anakin liked Obi-Wan— he often seemed so distracted by his own mission on Mandalore he never bridged into caring to the point of smothering like some of the . . . overinvested Council members. But he never had to doubt that the young man was fond of him.

Obi-Wan’s brow furrowed, “this is quite long, Anakin.”

Anakin worried at his lip. “You don’t have to read it _all_ . . .”

Obi-Wan sighed and Anakin knew he’d won. It wasn’t manipulative when it helped Anakin achieve something that everyone seemed to want him to, he told himself. The Force had practically willed it.

“Very well. The first chapter— the boy who lived.” Obi-Wan’s Coruscanti accent flowed over Anakin and he fell into the story of a boy in a universe far more different than his own.

* * *

“Anakin, are you still listening?” Obi-Wan asked softly. 

Anakin’s eyes snapped open. “Uh, yeah.” He looked down at the datafile in his hands, the symbols swirling before his eyes. A few of them stuck out as familiar to him, the sounds mingling in his mind. Huh.

“Is it okay if we stop here?” he asked, a strange feeling coming over him. “Would it be alright if I read this alone from now on?”

Obi-Wan’s expression softened. “Of course. Let me know how you like the book.”

Anakin nodded absentmindedly, still focused on the glow of the datapad. The comlink channel closed, immersing him in the sole light of the screen.

The darkness spurred him to action and Anakin rustled around his room to find the flimsi with all the Aurebesh symbols on them. He opened the text to the first page. He could still remember the words Obi-Wan had said and he placed the flimsi next to the pad for reference. Anakin’s heart felt like it was thundering in his chest, which seemed ridiculous. He was just going to try to read.

Master Yoda’s words suddenly came back to him. _Do or do not, there is no try,_ the wizened Master rang in his mind. Right then.

Anakin sounded out the words to himself. “The boy . . . who lived.”

* * *

In all her years of maintaining the Jedi Archives as Chief Librarian, Master Jocasta Nu had never had quite a visitor like Padawan Skywalker. 

Barring the obvious difference that most of the visitors to the Archives, while largely consisting of holocrons and the like, were literate, she had also noticed over her many years that the Jedi were not a particularly word-loving group. 

For all their appearance to the public as a group of all-powerful, scholarly protectors, hardly ever any Jedi or initiates who came regularly simply for the enjoyment of reading. Indeed, many a Padawan dreaded being assigned to help shelve texts, most of them bemoaning their luck.

Padawan Skywalker was different. What with his sun-tanned skin and bright blond hair, the young human Padawan would have already stood out from more of the other, pale-skinned human Jedi that had grown up on Coruscant. Add to it his inherently loud disposition and illiteracy, it would seem that the boy was born to be diametrically opposed to the Archives.

But he wasn’t.

Certainly, Jocasta saw how Skywalker would slink away from her piercing gaze through the shelves whenever assigned to help organize the texts. Padawans never entirely changed too much.

But she saw the many times Padawan Skywalker would diligently walk to the study room Master Windu had requisitioned for their use. No matter how much Skywalker grumbled, he would return each time, diligently practicing under he wrung his hand in pain. But he persisted.

And then, a few weeks into his efforts, Padawan Skywalker began coming to the Archives outside of when his Padawan chores assigned him and the lessons with Master Windu.

Jocasta would watch the boy idly, see how he would pull out random texts, silently mouthing to himself the titles or passages, always being sure to place them in their proper places once done. She would watch the way his brow furrowed, utterly immersed in trying to swallow up as many texts as he could. Sometimes, Jocasta would be so distracted she would forget that she was meant to be ordering a new set of the Bith book of tones.

There was something magnetic about Padawan Skywalker in the Force. His presence was warm, filling the aisles as he walked through.

It took Padawan Skywalker nearly half a year to return the first datafile he borrowed. In that time, Jocasta watched him progress from occasionally mumbling and mouthing the syllables of words to himself while he read to simply reading. He would come to the Archives to peruse all the texts he had never known existed before from wherever the boy had come from and if Jocasta occasionally spent longer than usual reshelving certain novellas she thought the boy might like considering what of his tastes she had seen . . . well, there was always denial. 

There was always a warm spark in the Force whenever Skywalker found a short story or something that was intriguing.

Any self respecting academic would say a boy of Skywalker’s age should be studying histories and progressing further than the texts he seemed inclined toward— and Jocasta was sure Master Windu was giving the boy plenty of work on the side— but she never did consider herself an academic in the stiffest sense.

Jocasta was first and foremost the Chief Librarian— she had dedicated much of her life to this path after stepping away from her work as a full Jedi Knight— and the Chief Librarian did _not_ play favorites. She did her best to curate a diverse selection of impartial sources, and some biased ones for the sake of posterity.

And literature was literature. So when Padawan Skywalker finally returned the first datapad to her, the one he had spent months reading that she had occasionally seen him carrying around with him, Jocasta merely gave another of her stern, close-lipped smiles to the boy when he checked out the second book in the series.

The Padawan had improved at his shielding, yet he still radiated like sunshine in the Force.

“It’s a fine book, isn’t it?” Jocasta found herself commenting as Padawan Skywalker began to walk away. She blinked, a bit flabbergasted at herself. She _never_ made idle talk. Yet the words had come.

Skywalker paused, surprised as well, but then an enthused smile came. “It is— it took me a while to get that the chants were transliterated into Aurebesh. At first it was hard for me to figure out a pronunciation from the irregular words.”

Jocasta found herself being dragged into a rather pleasant conversation. “Indeed, the linguistic features of the novel are quite interesting. I believe the author used a mix of Mid-Rim planet dialects to create the ancient language of the novel.”

At that, Skywalker’s eyes widened in fascination. She smiled faintly, “I have a few datafiles on those if you would like them?” At his nod, she added the texts to his growing pile. It was only when her counter was left in a pleasant atmosphere after he left that Jocasta realized she hadn’t given her regular spiel of making sure he properly returned the datafiles.

Jocasta could admit that she was a bit fond of the boy, but, Force, if anything happened to one of her texts there _would_ be consequences.

**Author's Note:**

> bc yeah the jedi are basically magic space wizards and maybe there's room for another boy wizard in the galaxy  
> (this was a dorky way for me to slip hp into star wars, but i also think that anakin would be the sort of person to be totally unmotivated by rote practice. instead, he finds stories compelling so that's why i headcanon this being the way he learned to read/write haha. also jocasta deserves more recognition bc she's kind of badass so)


End file.
